Mess, Addressed: Hoarding Gets Its Own Diagnosis

Boston researchers are looking for ways to treat young adults before the behaviors of hoarding become ingrained.

While TLCâ€™s Hoarding: Buried Alive would have you believe that all hoarders are middle-aged shut-ins, it turns out that the disorder actually sets in during adolescenceâ€”no surprise to anyone familiar with college dorm rooms.

To address this problem, researchers from Smith College and Boston Universityâ€™s School of Social Work have been studying the disease, looking for ways to treat young adults before the behaviors become ingrained. Thanks in part to their work, hoardingâ€”long considered a subset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)â€”will get its own diagnosis next month in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

â€śThe brain scans of people with hoarding disorder when they are trying to make a decision about an object is different than what we see in people with OCD,â€ť explains Randy Frost, an author and professor of psychology at Smith. Heâ€™s working to develop a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that will address the major facets of hoarding: acquisition problems, difficulty discarding, and disorganization. â€śWe are trying to identify the core vulnerabilities among young adults and to understand the development of the disorder,â€ť adds Jordana Muroff, an assistant professor at BU. Hall monitors nationwide, rejoice!